Emily Blejwas jumps right into the title of her book, Like Nothing Amazing Ever Happened, with a TPing, (which seems an important thing to read about right now!) In 1991, Murphy, older brother of the protagonist Justin, makes something happen in this place where nothing ever does by TPing the Hornet hockey captain’s house. Right away, Murphy exhibits his ability to smile and mitigate punishment when the cops let him off with a warning and grins of their own.
The book’s seeming quietness belies real issues underneath. The first and primary issue is the recent death of the boys’ father. The known part is that the father was drinking and was killed on the train tracks. The question of whether this was an accident or purposeful bothers Justin along with the whispers and questions of the community around him. As the backstory is developed, one senses the father’s PTSD, adding to the quandary.
Life goes on for Justin and involves a cute, friendly girl named Jenni whom he must learn to talk to, a physics genius friend named Phuc, and a disheveled man named Benny H. who gets a daily handout of a cup of coffee and a doughnut from the bakery. Conversations with Benny about his and the town’s Dakota history attract Justin and gives him an idea for his history project. When Justin learns that the Dakota have sixteen different verbs for home, one feels his empathy at their loss of homeland while he is seeking that feeling of home without his father.
There comes a time when Phuc and Justin find a common analogy in white space like a missing picture in Mr. Bauer’s old slide projector he uses in class. Phuc’s parents have pictures of their youth in Vietnam ending with a photo standing next to the university in Hanoi, but what follows is like a blank white space before their first winter in Minnesota. How did they get from one to the other? Justin realizes that his father also never talked about Vietnam – leaving another white space. Both boys wonder if their parents may have met and whether they would have been on the same side.
Emily Blejwas writes a compelling story that lingers in her readers’ minds afterwards with questions to ask and thoughts about justice and rights.